Professor Ilham TOHTI

A writer, academic and public intellectual, Ilham Tohti is serving a life sentence after conviction of separatism.  He was detained on 15 January 2014 by police following a raid on his home in Beijing. During his detention, he was repeatedly denied access to his family or legal representatives. Despite the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention finding his detention to be arbitrary in March 2014, Ilham Tohti was convicted of separatism and sentenced to life imprisonment following a two-day unfair trial in September 2014 (see Case Lists 2014 – 2023/2024). On 4 July 2024, PEN International called for Ilham Tohti’s release during China’s Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Ilham Tohti, born on 25 October 1969, is an academic committed to the promoting inter-ethnic dialogue and advocating for the rights of Uyghurs and other minorities in China. An economics professor at Beijing’s Minzu University, Ilham Tohti dedicated much of his academic work to the study of the role that state policy played in the systematic persecution of the Uyghur and other minority groups in China. Included in his writings, some of which have been collected in his book We Uyghurs Have No Say, are nuanced discussions of the state of relations between ethnic groups in Xinjiang and the role that ethnic policy played in exacerbating long-standing social and economic issues experienced by Uyghurs. 

In 2006, he founded Uyghur Online, a bilingual website designed to foster mutual understanding by reporting on human rights issues and calling for fair treatment of China’s minority populations. Despite repeated attempts by authorities to close down the website, it emerged as an important platform for inter-ethnic dialogue through its discussion forums before it was forced to close in the run-up to Ilham Tohti’s arrest. In 2020, the website was partially restored by the Ilham Tohti Institute.